57 Quotes by Anna Funder

  • Author Anna Funder
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    The mistake the GDR made was to force people into a position,’ the dark man says, ‘either you are for us or an enemy. And if you then came to think of yourself as an enemy you had to ask yourself: what am I doing here? They wanted to put everything into their narrow schema, but life simply didn’t fit into it.’ He pauses, and the others wait for him to finish. ‘I think we need to remember that they came here for the freedom, not for fifteen kinds of ketchup.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    Apparently, even in the GDR, sleep deprivation amounted to torture, and torture, at least of minors, was not official policy.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    They didn’t need as many external rules as we did because they had internalised the standards of decency.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    Per capita the East Germans drank more than twice as much as their West German counterparts.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    This was perfect dictator-logic: we investigate you, therefore you are an enemy.

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    Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can’t look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn’t get back.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    Perhaps because of all the money poured into this, the things behind the spanking displays look old and crummy, like articles from a time that has been left behind. I slap down the stairs in my sandals. I am annoyed that this past can look so tawdry and so safe, as if destined from the outset to end up behind glass, securely roped off and under pressure-button control. And I am annoyed at myself: what’s the problem? Isn’t a museum the place for things that are over?

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    Q: What does the human spirit do after ten days without sleep, and ten days of isolation tempered only by nocturnal threat sessions? A: It dreams up a solution.

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  • Author Anna Funder
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    All day long they hold what look like philosophical discussions, gesticulating slowly with their free hands and clasping tins of beer with the other. They seem to share knowledge of a world where each of them once had a place.

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